PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AirLander take off then 2nd Flight Mishap
Old 25th Aug 2016, 12:25
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Andrewgr2
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Whilst I too am sceptical of the economics and practicality of Airlander, I'm not at all sure that carrying cauliflowers, or indeed any sort of perishable goods, is seen as a key target role! The current Airlander 10 seems to be being promoted as a prototype with the Airlander 50, with its 50 ton payload as the more commercially attractive version. Presumably the costs of scaling up would not be that great.

The low speed flight issues demonstrated by the landing 'mishap' must be causing considerable concern for the design team. With considerable lift, and hence control, available by virtue of forward motion the problems of loss of that control when landing must be great. As a glider pilot, I can see that one end of an Airlander could well be in air going up at 500 feet per minute or more whilst the other end is in the matching sink. How you stop such a low density gas bag rotating as a result, I don't know. Someone else can do the sums, but I suspect that it would require far more power than is available from the vectored thrust engines.
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